It is disheartening to hear from the Presidential spokesperson, Edwin Lacierda, said that “national industrialization is passe.” He issued this statement as he announced the termination of the government’s negotiations with the National Democratic Front.

Last Holy Tuesday, President Benigno Aquino 3rd said in an interview that, “power rates will go up in Mindanao because the choice is a higher power rate or no power.” He announced this as the country enters the summer season and the whole island already faced with rotating brownouts every day.

Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla presented a plan to tap diesel-powered generators to augment the supply in the island as the government waits for coal-fired power plants to be operational around 2015. The diesel-powered plants were seen to be the fastest way to plug the energy gap but at the cost of a higher price for consumers. The president added that around 300 megawatts of power will come on-line in around two years from coal power plants.

“If only the country has a booming shipping industry, we wouldn't have to rely on the US Navy to solve simple issues as dismantling a wrecked ship such as the USS Guardian. There wouldn't have been a need to contract marine salvaging companies from Singapore and other neighboring countries to do the job,” said AGHAM Chairperson Giovanni Tapang.

February 6, 2013

PH needs nat’l ship industry to protect reefs and territory

I had an interesting discussion last Tuesday with a young PhD faculty from the UP Physics Department who is about to go to his postdoctoral studies abroad. He came from the Philippine Science High School program, took his undergraduate and graduate physics degrees from the UP and is one of the most promising young faculty in the department. We were discussing about the serious problem of the lack of science and engineering faculty and researchers in the country and how many of his high school batchmates find jobs either out of the country or in lines of industry outside of their expertise.

The overreaction of the Aquino government to the launch of belies its sincerity in facing the supposed risks. Rather than seeking a dialogue with the DPRK, it would rather join in the fray and panic with other countries such as the US, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Its "disaster preparedness" is unprecedented in this instance since we do not see such a level of preparation and activity when typhoons arrive in the country. It seems that the government has proved that it can indeed mobilize and prepare for a very small risk from space debris, imagined or otherwise, but it seems to be just Noynoying when other disasters strike.

PRESS RELEASE

September 14, 2011

Just as the bull market for metals has actively pushed the mining industry of the country, the Philippine government welcomed it with open arms with mining applications totaling to 2,136. The liberalization of the local mining industry has been flaunted by the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines to gain foreign partnership in the business of mining. They have sponsored a three-day mining conference from September 13 to Sept. 15 at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Hotel. The said conference is participated by almost 500 local and international delegates to discuss the global scenario of mining investments and its opportunities.

THE landslide last April 22, 2011 in a small-scale mining community in Pantukan, Compostela Valley which left 14 dead, 14 injured and 8 missing (NDRRMC), once again brought the concern of small-scale mining to the forefront. The incident reminds us of the ever-present occupational hazards faced by our country’s small-scale miners and signals the need to be pro-active in preventing occupationally-related disasters.

The preliminary results of a recent study by the Department of Science and Technology Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) show that the “brain drain” phenomenon continues and has even worsened during the past few years. According to DOST-SEI Officer in Charge and Deputy Director Dr. Leticia Catris, the number of emigrating science workers from the Philippines has ballooned to around two and a half times compared to the figure 11 years ago. In 1998, there were 9,877 outbound science workers from the country. More than a decade after in 2009, the number has grown by 148 percent to 24,502. More than half of these are health professionals and nurses while a fifth are engineers.

In investigating the characteristics of a certain system, one usually performs several measurements simultaneously on it to obtain an average description. Alternatively, one can observe the system for a certain period to find statistical and qualitative behavior patterns that do not change over time. If we have a-priori knowledge about the system’s dynamics, unexpected data points usually indicate the need to revise our original description. On the other hand, if the measurements match our a-priori description, it further validates it and makes it useful in forecasting future behavior.

Every semester, I get the op-portunity to lecture about national industrialization and its relation to science and technology development at several Science, Technology and Society classes in the University of the Philippines in Diliman. I discuss about the need to develop domestic industries, not only to provide local employment and goods, but also to push for local science and technology to flourish outside the academe and have an impact on a larger part of Philippine society.